In the conventionally employed work model, generally, organizations, such as companies, associations and public institutions, secure office space, in other words a workplace, for their employed workers (hereinafter “employees”) who are put to work on clerical, marketing or technical matters not requiring large-scale equipment. The office space may be either the organization's own buildings or may be secured by rental lease, and the employees arrive and gather at the office space by a work starting time using public transportation and/or private vehicles and perform collective labor within a predetermined work time. In that office space are provided a variety of equipment, such as telephones, copiers, fax machines, computers and computer networks, in an effort to make work more efficient.
The practice of collective work is a relatively new one, adopted with the industrial revolution in order to run factories efficiently. Recently, however, as the social ills created by collective work, such as “commuting hell”, as well as the air pollution attendant upon the increase in the number of automobiles, become more apparent, the creation of the internet and other such communications infrastructure and advances in a variety of communications technologies make it clear that collective work is not necessarily the only work model for either organizations or their employees. As a result, distributed work, which allows employees belonging to the same organization to work at home or at a place of their choosing but which controls them so as to accomplish the goals of the organization as a whole, is gaining attention as an alternative to the collective work model.
However, in order to implement distributed work in the context of an organization such as a company, it is necessary to tie together a plurality of home offices (and here a “home office” may be a room of the employee's home that is used as a work space) that are geographically dispersed so that employees can communicate with each other using in-home communications terminals and communications application systems. Public telephone networks, ISDN, internet-dedicated lines and the like are used as the communications lines, and electronic mail (e-mail) systems, World Wide Web (WWW) systems, videoconference systems and the like are used as the communications applications systems.
Moreover, employees sometimes use not a home office but a satellite office or tele-cottage and the like provided by the organization to which they belong or by local governments, or, in the case of marketing or maintenance, sometimes use a private automobile or the seat of a public transportation vehicle as a temporary work place (i.e., a mobile office).
An example of the structure of this type of distributed work is given below, using FIGS. 23 and 24. FIG. 23 is a block diagram showing the structure of a home office in the conventional distributed work model. FIG. 24 is a table showing typical communications applications systems used in the conventional distributed work model.
As shown in FIG. 23, in a distributed work home office 110a are provided a personal computer 102a loaded with communications application software 103a for communicating between a main office 109a and another home office 110a or a mobile office 111a, a telephone 105a, a facsimile machine 106a and an ISDN terminal adapter (hereinafter “TA”) 104a. The TA 104a has a data port and two analog ports. The data port is connected to serial port of the personal computer 102a. One of the analog ports of the TA 104a is connected to the telephone 105a and the other analog port is connected to the facsimile machine 106a. 
Moreover, the TA 104a is connected to a communications network 108a composed of an ISDN by a Digital Service Unit (DSU) 107a, so that the home office 101a uses the communications network 108a to communicate with the main office 109a and the other home office 110a or the mobile office 111a. It should be noted that instead of the ISDN a modem may be used to connect to an ordinary phone network so that the home office 101a uses the communications network 108a to communicate with the main office 109a and the other home office 110a or the mobile office 111a. 
As the communications application software 103a installed in the personal computer 102a, as shown in FIG. 24 there is e-mail/client software 21a, group schedule manager 22a, World Wide Web browser software 23a, videoconferencing software 24a and collaboration software 25a. 
The e-mail/client software 21a is used to exchange electronic mail with workers in the main office 109a and the other home office 110a or the mobile office 111a, and is software that enables the creation, transmission and reception, and reading of e-mail. The group schedule manager 22a is software that enables registration and checking of the worker's own work schedule as well as the checking of other work schedules as well. The World Wide Web browser 23a is software mainly for viewing the home page created by the organization to which the worker belongs as well as group member bulletin boards placed on the home page.
The videoconferencing software 24a is for enabling meetings and conferences to take place without actually going to another location, and enables voice and image data exchange with other workers via the communications network 108a. The collaboration software 25a is software for allowing several workers to open a shared whiteboard or the same application software each on their own personal computers so as to enable them to collaborate thereon. The collaboration software 25a is sometimes included in the videoconferencing software 24a. 
Thus, as described above, conventionally, where a worker belonging to an organization works at a home office, that worker proceeds with a task while maintaining contact with other workers using the telephone 105a, facsimile machine 106a, personal computer 102a and the various communications application software installed in each of these apparatuses.
Moreover, recently, as networks have become more sophisticated, information at the terminals of workers in a distributed work environment can now be shared. In a network environment of this type there is a growing demand for the capability to check the status of other parties within the communications network, in an effort to make work more efficient by enabling each user to know the status of other users (i.e., sharing status information among users) using the terminal.
Given that the status information in question consists of work status information in an office, a work status management system has been proposed that enables a user to check the work status of other users by using the network to manage the work status information of users of each client terminal with a server and displaying said work status at each client terminal.
A specific example of distributed work using such a technology is described using FIGS. 25 and 26. FIG. 25 is a diagram showing an example of the conventional distributed work office. FIG. 26 is a diagram showing schematically the form of collective work carried out before the distributed work in FIG. 25.
As shown in FIG. 25, workers A, B and C each work at home offices 110a, worker D works at a main office and worker E works at a mobile office, with workers A, B, C, D and E having the ability to communicate with each other through the communications network 108a. 
The form of work prior to the start of such type of distributed work is, for example, the collective work arrangement shown in FIG. 26. With such collective work, workers A-E work at desks provided for each of them. In the case of such collective work, worker A, for example, can easily ascertain the condition of workers B-E visually or aurally, and therefore worker A can sense when worker B appears to be not busy and can talk with worker B at an appropriate time.
In contrast to such collective work experience, in a distributed work arrangement, when for example worker A talks to worker B, typically that conversation is carried out using the telephone 105a or the videoconferencing software 24a (shown in FIGS. 23 and 24). However, when worker A calls worker B using the telephone 105a or the videoconferencing software 24a, because worker A cannot check the status of worker B prior to calling, if, for example, worker B is in the middle of a call or on a break and cannot respond to the call, worker A has wasted the effort in calling worker B, degrading the efficiency of work.
In these circumstances, worker A can send a question to worker B by e-mail using the electronic mail/client software 21a. However, with this method, if the question is such as to require an urgent answer it is unclear when a reply from worker B will arrive, and therefore creates a planning difficulty for worker A's work.
In order to avoid such a situation, worker A can check worker B's schedule using the group schedule manager 22a. However, what is registered by the group schedule manager 22a is often limited to action plans and work schedules broken down into 1-hour time units, and usually break times are not registered. Moreover, what is registered by the group schedule manager 22a is at best only a schedule, and does not reflect the actual state of the worker. In other words, the group schedule manager 22a will never be a sure means of ascertaining the actual state of another party.
In order to solve the drawbacks described above, a system has been tried that uses the videoconferencing software 24a to display images of a plurality of workers simultaneously so that each worker can see the work status of all the other workers. As commercial implementations of this system there are enhanced CU-SeeMe and Reflector (Enhanced CU-SeeMe server software) developed and marketed by White Pine Software Inc. of the United States.
A description is given of such a system with reference to FIG. 27. FIG. 27 is a diagram showing a sample screen of a personal computer in a home office according to a system that enables each worker to see the work status of all other workers using videoconferencing software.
With such a system, which uses videoconferencing software to enable each user to see the work status of all the other workers, by displaying images of the other workers not just during conferences but continuously during work time as shown in FIG. 27, it is possible to check if another worker is in the home office or not, for example, or is on the telephone.
In addition, recently, as improvements in personal computer computation processing capacities have made it possible to software-process such digital image compression and expansion processes, the spread of low-cost personal computer video capture devices (i.e., video cameras) and the spread of USB (Universal Serial Bus) interfaces that can easily connect video capture devices and personal computers, a so-called “video instant messenging system” has been commercialized that adds video images to the messenging system described above to provide information sharing among users of not only text messages but also video images, enabling business contacts among users dispersed in separate locations to proceed smoothly.
However, although a variety of small improvements have been made with respect to status acquisition among workers in distributed work models like that described above, or to messenger systems that provide messaging used in communication among workers not limited to distributed work models, nevertheless in ascertaining the status of office equipment used by workers a variety of unresolved drawbacks remain.
For example, with applications in which peripheral device information is obtained by the client computer (hereinafter called “peripheral device information display software”), generally, when acquiring peripheral device information, such information of the necessary application cannot be obtained without going through a large number of operations, such as activating the application, specifying such basic information needed to identify the peripheral device in question as the IP address and domain name, by which process the required information is finally displayed.
Moreover, where the condition of a working office is not known, as is the case with new employees or with a sudden reassignment of department or office, work cannot commence smoothly if information on peripheral devices that can be used in that office is not known, such as, for example, of the peripheral devices installed in the office, how many printers and copiers one is permitted to use, where these devices are located, and what their state of operation is.
Furthermore, when using a possible capability or fax capability at a portion of a copier, such as when scanning a document at one copier and designating another copier at which to print out the scanned document, often one does not know the status of the destination peripheral device that outputs the document, and therefore, if the destination peripheral device is not supplied with power or an error has occurred and the job cannot be executed, one might repeatedly transmit to a destination peripheral device that cannot accomplish the requested task, resulting in wasted time and effort.
Moreover, the information that the peripheral device information display software can obtain and provide the user is limited to items that can be detected by such peripheral devices' own internal sensors. If, for example, a given user, because a paper jam error or the like is displayed by the peripheral device information display software, heads toward the location of the peripheral device in order to solve the problem, it is possible that another user might already be in the process of fixing the problem. However, the peripheral device information display software cannot obtain and display information such as whether or not someone is standing in front of the peripheral device in question, and therefore, although one can of course wait for another User to effect repairs and then print the document, by the peripheral device information display software alone it is not possible to know whether or not someone is attempting to solve the problem that is the cause of the error, be it a paper jam or something else. As a result, one might end up going to the location of the peripheral device in question and returning to one's seat for nothing, because some other user has already begun to effect repairs.